724 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
November 6 
they made a year ago in selling so much of their 
young growing stock to go south. They have now a 
surplus of feed and a comparative deficiency of stock 
to consume it. This is all the more to be regretted 
in consequence of the increasing demand in the Eng¬ 
lish market for Canadian beef and dairy products. 
The natural result of the changed condition of things 
created by the Dingley bill, it is not difficult to see, 
will be that we in Ontario will turn all our attention 
to fostering trade with England. Trade with the 
United States must in the nature of things be greatly 
restricted. Canada will, as a consequence, seek out 
for new channels whereby she may exchange what 
she has to spare of her own products for those of 
foreign lands that she either cannot produce at all, or 
only at a greater expense than she can buy them 
abroad. It does not take a prophet to see that this 
change must in the end prove a benefit to her by 
making her more independent and stimulating the 
development of her natural resources. She was so 
long dependent upon the one market that she was 
beginning to think that she could not do without it; 
but she is very rapidly growing out of that weakness, 
and will yet prove herself worthy of her parentage, 
and her other family connections. w. o. k. 
ARTIFICIAL CULTURE OF FISH. 
Animals in a wild condition are much like plants, 
that is, subject to a vast amount of destruction and 
waste in their reproductive processes. One fish may 
produce thousands of eggs, yet not five of them per¬ 
fect the hatching. Numerous enemies, and accidents 
in great variety, all tend to destroy, doubtless, 99 per 
cent of the eggs deposited by fish on the spawning bed. 
Imperfect impregnation in natural spawning is, by far, 
the cause of the most loss ; commonly the loss in this 
way is 90 to 95 per cent, while by artificial impregna¬ 
tion, 80 to 90 per cent of the eggs are hatched. 
This fact goes to show how, by artificial care of the 
eggs, they may be saved from these accidents and, 
instead of one in a hundred being saved, only one in 
a hundred need be lost. A careful count of the fish 
saved from one hatching of 25,000 trout eggs has 
shown a loss of less than one per cent; at least 99 per 
cent was safely hatched and turned into the stream. 
In other instances, the young fry seen thickly gath¬ 
ered in the shallow pools between the rocks on the 
borders of the stream, gave similar evidence of the 
very great economy of artificial methods over the 
natural way of increase by promiscuous spawning. 
Artificial culture of fish has been shown to be im¬ 
mensely more profitable than the natural method, 
under which the fishing quickly grows less and less 
productive until, in time, the fish no more appear. 
But the results of the artificial propagation of our 
most valuable market fish have been so greatly suc¬ 
cessful that, where such fish as salmon and shad had 
disappeared, the stocking of the water by artificially 
hatched young has resulted in the reestablishment of 
the stock to a greater extent than it ever before 
existed. 
My first attempt was made by taking fish from the 
streams, and confining them in ponds through which 
the water of a brook was led, so as to afford a con¬ 
stant current of fresh water. It is surprising how fast 
fish will grow when kept in this way, and fed once a 
day. Small trout of three inches long will reach a 
size of 10 inches the second year, and as a five-inch 
trout is sexually mature and yields eggs, some hav¬ 
ing 300, and some many more, eggs, nearly all of 
which may be brought to maturity, it is easily seen 
what a prolific business this may be when under¬ 
taken in the right manner. 
A good plan for a succession of ponds is shown at 
Fig. 305. The water may be brought from the adjacent 
stream in a trough, starting from a dam by which the 
stream is raised sufficiently to make a current through 
the successive ponds, and through the hatching 
trough. This may be, instead of a wooden trough, a 
ditch, the bottom of which is covered with gravel, but 
it is best to take the eggs from the fish as they are 
ripe for spawning, and hatch them in a suitable 
trough ; otherwise, the fish may eat the eggs, and 
thus spoil the whole business. 
The hatching trough should be under a roof, at 
least, and be supplied with water through a spout or 
a pipe. It should have sufficient inclination to cause 
a constant flow of water over the eggs, and it is ad¬ 
visable to have it divided into sections of two feet, 
connecting with each other by a division of wire 
gauze. It is a very desirable plan to pass the water 
through a flannel screen as it enters the hatching 
trough, thus preventing some injurious matters pass¬ 
ing through with the water. Some of these will de¬ 
stroy many or even most of the eggs. These dangers 
consist of many minute animalcules which attack the 
eggs, and a mildew which is exceedingly destructive. 
I have found the flannel screen very useful as a pre¬ 
ventive of this mischief. 
The pond may be laid out into divisions as desired. 
This method is best, I think, as the small fish may be 
kept and fed until past risk of injury, and strong 
enough to take care of themselves as to feeding. If 
it be desired, the large fish may be kept in the sepa¬ 
rate ponds, or in a large one where they may be fed 
if necessary. A stream of one square foot in section, 
flowing one to three feet in a second, will be suffi¬ 
cient to supply a large pond, or a number of small 
ones; these being connected by gates in the banks by 
which they are separated. The gates are made of 
wooden frames with quarter-inch wire netting, so 
that there is no obstruction to the flow of the water. 
If it is possible, it is very much better to have the 
small ponds on a slightly sloping ground, so that 
each one may be connected with the one below it by 
a small fall, by which the water is exposed to the 
air, and becomes refreshed and able to sustain more 
fish than the same water would in one pond. 
The hatching troughs should be carefully protected 
from small vermin, which might otherwise destroy a 
large number of the eggs. As the purity of the water 
is important to prevent the injurious fungus by which 
the eggs are often injured, it is a good plan to filter 
the water a second time through fine gravel, having 
clean washed fine sand under it, and coarser sand 
under this. This takes from the water all the in- 
j urious germs by which the young fish may be diseased, 
or the eggs destroyed before they are hatched. The 
colder the water the better, a temperature of 50 de¬ 
grees is the best, and it should not be over 60 degrees. 
In the ponds, the temperature is regulated and re¬ 
duced to some extent by floats, by which shade for the 
fish is procured as well as shelter for them during 
those hours of the day in which they rest and sleep. 
It is also necessary to have some rough rocks or 
stumps in the ponds on which the fish may rub them¬ 
selves to get rid of lice, by which they are frequently 
infested, and which make them thin and poor. Some¬ 
times these lice cause sickness among the fish, and 
many fish have been killed outright by these parasites 
which, generally, infest the gills, which are the 
breathing organs. henry stewart. 
GRAIN FOOD FOR THE HORSE. 
THE VALUE OF CORN. 
The proportions of the corn and oats which are 
best for working horses, will depend somewhat upon 
the nature of the work, and somewhat on the season 
of the year. The harder the horse is being worked, 
it would be correct to say, the larger the propor¬ 
tion of the corn that may be given to him, and the 
colder the weather, the more corn, relatively, he may 
be fed. But to keep the system in tone, he should be 
given oats and corn, and if some bran can be added, 
heavy feeding can be continued with safety for a 
longer period than in the absence of bran. When 
horses are being worked hard, they will do very well 
on a grain ration in winter, two-thirds of which is 
corn, and in summer, on a grain portion, one-third or 
one-half of which is corn. But if one-fourth or one- 
fifth of the grain fed is bran, there is much less 
danger of digestive derangement than when bran is 
not fed. So advantageous is bran to the grain food, 
that the aim should be to feed some of it during 
much of the year. The proportions named above 
relate to shelled corn and to weight rather than bulk. 
It would not seem to be very material whether the 
corn, oats and bran are all mixed before feeding, or 
whether they are fed separately; but even a horse 
tires of sameness, hence it may serve some useful 
end, as whetting the appetite, to feed the corn and 
oats separately, that is to say, to feed the corn morn¬ 
ing and evening in winter, and the oats at noon, and 
in the summer to feed the oats morning and evening, 
and the corn at noon. The bran could be fed with 
one or the other of these grains. 
A horse weighing 1.200 pounds would require about 
15 to 18 pounds of grain per day, that is to say five to 
six pounds at each of the three feeds ; but care should 
be taken to lessen the amount of food given when the 
work slackens, and in proportion as it slackens. 
Corn is deserving of a higher place as a grain food 
for work horses than is generally accorded to it, and 
of a higher place than the chemist would assign to it. 
The chemist speaks of it as containing too much 
starch to make it a suitable food for feeding to horses, 
especially in warm weather. Or if the chemists do 
not say that, many who have written on this question 
say it for them, after they have taken the analysis of 
the chemist as the basis of their remarks. But the 
facts do not sustain those statements, since Illinois, 
Iowa and other corn States have good, sound, healthy 
horses, speaking relatively, and when at work, their 
chief grain food is corn. Much of the prejudice that 
exists against corn as a food for horses has, doubtless, 
arisen from the ill effects that have come from feed¬ 
ing it when not in a perfectly wholesome condition. 
In many instances, it does not properly mature, espe¬ 
cially in the northern States. When it does not so 
mature, it is likely to mold more or less, even when 
the mold on the exterior surface of the corn is not 
apparent to the eye ; such corn is not wholesome, and 
dealers sometimes grind it to hide traces of mold ; 
such meal should not be fed to horses. The man who 
feeds it on the cob knows best what he is feeding. On 
the other band, the fact should not be overlooked 
that corn is not nearly so good a food for immature 
colts and brood mares as oats and bran, since it has 
not enough of the phosphates in it to build up the 
horse properly, or enough of protein to build up the 
flesh. Of course, it is the pregnant brood mare that 
is referred to. prof. thos. shaw, 
Minnesota Experiment Station. 
PECANS IN CENTRAL ILLINOIS. 
I mail you a small package of pecans. About half 
of my first planting of trees are now more less in 
bearing. These trees were planted in the spring of 
1883, and as they were entirely too large (five to six 
feet) for planting, the buds failed to swell until late 
in June, and I had almost despaired of any success in 
the transplanting of trees so large. But of the 
100 planted, about 60 are now alive; those bearing 
show nuts of different sizes, shape and quality. Those 
in one of the packages are about the best, everything 
considered, of any yet in bearing, and I think that 
they will compare favorably with most of the good 
northern varieties. I have for a few years been look¬ 
ing for still better ones, and no doubt, some may yet 
be discovered that are twice the size of those sent you. 
But there are the questions of productiveness, 
shape, and quality, to be considered, as well as size. 
I prefer a nut to be as nearly round as possible, for 
one that is long and slim contains less meat in pro¬ 
portion to the waste, and is, also, harder to crack, 
and to handle in a nut cracker. Again, the parts 
dividing the halves vary much in bitterness ; in some 
instances, a very small piece of this division mixed in 
with the meat spoils it completely. The corrugations 
on the inside of the shell also vary ; in one variety, 
they may hold to and break the halves, in another 
the meat will come out easily in perfect shape. I 
notice much difference in the thickness of the outside 
hull. When seen on the tree, the fruit maybe large, 
and yet “shell out” only a little thin nut, so one may 
be deceived by judging from first appearances in this 
case, also. 
I also send very curious nuts from another tree ; 
about one in 25 has a red dish-colored meat. If from 
the whole ones sent, you do not find this curiosity, 
you will in a few that are cr acked, which I put in an¬ 
other package. With a small pocket microscope, I 
can see no cause for such a change in color, but it 
must be constitution al, for nothing like it is found 
among any of the other seedlings. It may be interest¬ 
ing to note that these nu ts are from trees that have 
felt without flinching weather that drove the mercury 
down to 30 de grees below zero. These nuts are not 
so large as the Texas pecans, but they are, at least, 
reasonably hardy, and I think that other kinds may 
be found here that will nearly rival in size and quality 
even the famed Guadeloupe varieties. 
But the propagation—there’s the rub ! I had a 
little conceit in this direction o nee, but it has all 
leaked out, and I call for help—for I have another 
orchard of seedlings from three to six feet high, that 
I would like to see worked over to the best varieties. 
Illinois. BENJ. BUCKMAN. 
R. N.-Y.—These seedling nuts varied much as Mr. 
Buckman has described. The largest of them were 
less than two inches long by three-quarters-inch wide. 
HOW BLIGHT AND ROT SPREAD. 
Dr. Irwin F. Smith, Pathologist of the Agricultural 
Department, who is one of our best American authori¬ 
ties, recently gave a talk before the Rochester 
Academy of Science. He is satisfied that Peach yel¬ 
lows cannot be cured by any methods of culture, fer¬ 
tilization, or other treatment. The only thing to do 
is to dig out the tree, root and branch, and burn it up. 
He says that he has proved beyond a possibility of 
doubt that Peach yellows is contagious, and com¬ 
municated from one tree to another. An interesting 
feature of his lecture was a stereopticon, which 
showed sections of the leaves and stalks of plants. In 
these enlarged views, it was seen that through the 
